Friday, October 9, 2015

The Martian

First of all, an excellent film. I loved the book, and the film does not disappoint. This is pure space sci-fi, with the primary fiction being that we are witnessing the third manned mission to Mars. After that, it is all science. Mark Watney is stranded on the planet after his crew does an emergency departure during a storm and leaves him for dead. Watney is the team botanist and mechanical engineer, so he is constantly calculating and improvising his resources to stretch sustaining his life one more day. With this life or death tension riding over the entire story, we manage to be entertained by Watney's approach to life, his interactions with NASA, and by the fact that as the omniscient viewer we see the silliness and/or audacity of many of the decisions that are made. I love that this came across as sci-fi realism and was simultaneously able to capture the excitement and joy and passion of science.

5 stars (out of 5)

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